


The Mischief Rule

by rexluscus



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard
Genre: F/M, First Time, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:39:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexluscus/pseuds/rexluscus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex with a god sounds great, in theory, but Verity discovers that Loki can be just as much of a pain in the ass in bed as he is out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mischief Rule

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wyomingnot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyomingnot/gifts).



> Small content warning: I wouldn't call it dub-con, exactly, but note that this story contains people being, shall we say, tone-deaf to their partner's needs in bed, so please take heed if that's not a good thing for you.
> 
> Also, there are no spoilers for any issues of LOKI: AGENT OF ASGARD past issue #3, but it's set after #5, and there are one or two lines that will resonate more if you've read that far. (If you aren't caught up, though, please note that their mission to the Negative Zone did not happen in the comics; I made that shit up.)

After months of denying the very possibility, of snapping indignantly at anyone who suggested she might be involved with Loki, it happened—on the night they returned from the Negative Zone. Verity was so glad just to be back in New York, with its shitty weather and smelly subway stations and overpriced restaurants, and not in an alternate dimension with a massive gravitational vortex trying to kill her, that when they popped out of the portal into Loki's apartment, she threw herself into his arms and kissed him right on the mouth. 

Loki made a sound of pleased surprise and reciprocated, at least for a while; then, sliding his fingers out of her hair and disengaging their lips reluctantly, he said, "Are you quite certain about this?"

"No, of course not," Verity murmured against his chin. "I'm not _certain_ about anything, but that's the point—life is short."

"Yes, but—" Loki's words were muffled by her mouth— "are you certain you won't wake up tomorrow and hate me? It's safe to say you don't fully know what you're getting into…" 

Verity paused and pulled back. She'd heard a lot of bad romantic excuses—in her experience, "I don't want to take advantage of you" or "I just think we're moving too fast" were things people said to avoid admitting "I'm not actually into you"—but Loki really believed Verity was going to freak out and abandon him. She felt a stab of sympathy—why did he persist in believing he would lose anyone who claimed to be his friend?—before another possibility occurred to her. "Is there a _reason_ you think sex with you will send me running for the hills?" she asked, eyes narrow. "What aren't you telling me, Loki?"

"Ah," he chuckled, "that could fill a book, really. But specifically, here—I'm just, well—a lot to take, I guess you could say. In bed."

She tilted her head, puzzled. "That sounds like a good thing, frankly."

"No, I mean—oh, never mind." Loki thrust his hands back into her hair and crushed their mouths together. "I really _am_ my own worst enemy sometimes, aren't I? Let's do this."

Verity pushed his heavy coat off his shoulders. "Yeah, you are." Her mouth moved down to his jaw—perfectly smooth, no stubble—and then to the even smoother skin under it, just below his ear. Kissing her way down the groove of his neck, she felt his pulse hammering under her lips, and his groan vibrated through her whole body. "So far, so good, right?"

His groan turned into a growl, and the world flipped upside down as he swept an arm under her knees and lifted her up. Laughing, she kicked and struggled as he strode through the apartment with her cradled against his chest, fighting against arms that pinned her to him like steel bands—so strong that he barely seemed to notice her attempts to get free, playful though they were. A prick of fear spread goosebumps across her skin. She looked up at his shadowed face and went still, relaxing into his arms, which gave her a squeeze and settled her more comfortably into his embrace. His hand burned hot against her bare back where her shirt had ridden up. 

It was easy to forget. On the outside, he looked like a kid of eighteen or nineteen, tall but not athletic—someone who could have been in her class in school. Someone she was more than a match for, physically and emotionally. But he _wasn't_ —he was thousands of years old, and so powerful that—well, it was more than just a matter of his having six inches and forty pounds on her. "Loki," she asked as he deposited her gently on his bed. "You've done this before, right? With a human, I mean."

Shadows still hid most of his face, but she could see him blink. "Yes, of course. That isn't—a problem for you, is it?"

"No, no." She grabbed his shoulders and drew him down. "Just the opposite. Because, you know, human bodies are kind of delicate, compared to yours."

"Ah. Yes." His teeth gleamed in a grin that seemed to float above her in the dark. "Fear not, I'm well acquainted with the limits of mortal bodies."

She reached up to brush the spill of dark hair back behind his ear. He was so beautiful, so—enchanting. "You've never hurt anyone you slept with?"

"No," he said, and before she could object to the lie, he added, "not physically," and before she could object to _that_ one, "not without their permission." He took hold of her wrist and nibbled the inside of it, catching the skin gently between his teeth. "I'm very good at that, by the way—a bit of recreational pain, in controlled doses."

Her skin prickled again. "Sounds fun," she said. "But maybe another time."

He bent down and kissed her, bracing himself on his forearms, one hand coming to rest on the top of her head—a thumb stroked her forehead as she drew his tongue into her mouth. He kissed as if he were speaking to her, as if each little motion and pressure of his mouth contained words, true ones—as if his body were unfolding like a poem, true in that confusingly nonliteral way she'd never known what to do with. His skin smelled faintly of pine smoke. 

She ran her hands down the metallic scales that covered his chest. "Does this come off?"

"In a moment," he said, patient and imperious with the tone of an artist saying "give me time to work." He slid down to her waist and shoved her shirt up, bunching it under her arms so that it framed the tops of her breasts. Then he ran his thumbs along the edges of her tattered bra, slipping them just under the unraveled fringe of gray lace. She shuddered.

"I wish I'd thought to wear cuter underwear," she sighed as his breath followed his fingers on her breasts. 

"This isn't cute?" he asked with genuine bafflement. She gasped as his teeth scraped the fabric of her bra just over her nipple. "It has so many tiny little bows."

"It's like a hundred years old," she murmured, her hands wandering into his hair. This was her favorite part of sex, in all honesty—and she'd never even done it with someone who really knew their way around. His fingers slid beneath the bra's underwire and ran from the center to the edges, lifting just a bit—allowing the air to touch her skin. God, even that—she squeezed her thighs together and squirmed. Loki nipped her other nipple through the fabric.

"I adore human undergarments," he said, "especially these flimsy modern ones—they're barely even—" He lifted the bra and rucked it up above her breasts— "there, it seems—the mere _idea_ of an undergarment—" He took her nipple into his mouth and tickled it with his tongue, and this time _she_ made the embarrassing noises. When the bra did its best to slip back down her chest, he said, "Bother," took it in his hands and pulled it easily in half, like snapping a wishbone. 

"You're buying me a new one," she breathed, shutting her eyes as his fingers slid around the curves of her breasts and found the spots that made her skin pebble and her back arch. 

Untold minutes later, she opened her eyes again. Loki had taken off his green-scaled tunic at some point, and now he was kissing the softest part of her throat and playing with one of her breasts while his other hand drew circles on her stomach, slipping down every so often to trace the zipper of her jeans. "This is great and all," she said, and it _was_ —every inch of her skin tingled as if the air had fingers, and her arousal had that sleepy warmth that accompanied the best dreams—"but I kind of feel like you're doing all the work here."

"Mm?" Loki looked up, as if he too had been in a daze. "Oh, well…I don't mind." His eyelids were drooping, and his irises gleamed faintly, like green glass catching a bit of reflected light. 

"Loki…" Verity fought her languor and sat up. "Are you doing magic?"

"What?" He sat back on his haunches. "Magic?" She had come to recognize the sentiment that passed for guilt in his face. "I…may have been," he admitted. "Does it bother you?"

The wonderful dreamlike lassitude receded, and she struggled to think. _Did_ she mind? Whatever the hell he was doing, it felt amazing. "Not…necessarily," she said finally. "I just wasn't expecting it." 

"Mm. Noted." He smiled and reached for her waist. With both of their tops off, his skin against hers felt spectacular, like sun-warmed marble, like bath water enveloping her as he pulled her astride his lap and tucked his face against her throat. The hard seam of her jeans rubbed against his crotch, and as they twined together, she started a gentle motion against it, searching for a spot he'd like, that would make him tense up and pull her harder down on him. The seam stroked her just as much as it stroked him, and his hands tightened on her waist as they ground together, getting each other slowly off, easy and quiet in a way she'd never felt with anyone else. Her nipples brushed his chest, and for a second it was so good she almost asked if he was doing magic again. The thought made her pause.

Loki, who had been nibbling the side of her neck, looked up. "Verity?"

"Sorry," she said. "It's not the magic itself, it's that—I want it to be _you,_ not the magic. You know?"

"I don't mean to split hairs," said Loki, "but the magic _is_ me."

"Right, but—" Verity slid out of his lap and ran her hands through her hair. Loki gazed at her—not irritated that they'd stopped, just curious, puzzled. "I guess I can't help but feel magic as a lie. And as you know, I'm sensitive to lies."

"Did what I was doing feel like a lie to you?"

"Well—" She frowned, trying to find the words to explain. "It was just a feeling, and feelings don't lie, they don't—well, predicate anything, they just _are._ So no. But…"

"Perhaps it's not so much that magic lies as that it's unpredictable—you don't know what I'm _capable_ of doing, don't know what to expect."

"Maybe." She sighed and ventured a glance at him. He was starting to get that other look—the one he'd had earlier, when he'd worried she might reject him. "I want you to be _you—_ but as you keep telling me, I don't know all that much about you. I know what video games you're good at, and I know you prefer competitive reality shows to non-competitive ones, and I know you're obsessed with milkshakes—but there's all this other stuff, crazy cosmic space-Viking _stuff_ that—" She looked into his open, baffled face and nearly lost her nerve. "That just kind of scares me, you know? I mean, it's awesome—you have to understand, I've never been able to watch movies or read stories or buy into _anything_ that was genuinely amazing, but with you, I can, because with you it's _real_ —but that's also what makes it scary."

"Verity—" He smiled and took her face in his hands— "I promise none of it will hurt you. I'm not that kind of god—I know we've had something of a reputation in the past for being rather rude to our human lovers, but I assure you, I've only ever used my powers to give pleasure—at least during sex, anyway. Maybe we shouldn't speak of the rest." He smiled, bright and tremulous. "Honestly—I can be very amusing! Have I ever been anything but amusing for you, Verity?"

"You are definitely amusing," Verity admitted.

"Right." An impish look had crept into Loki's eyes. "Unlike some of those others—take Zeus, for instance. I use magic to divert the senses of my mortal partners, but with him it's all just—" 

In place of the man, there was suddenly a giant swan, stretching out its wings to beat the air.

She shrieked. "Loki!"

Swan became man again. "Sorry," he said. A few white feathers floated around his face. "Poetry joke. Bad one, probably. Have you read Yeats?"

"No. I've never really gotten poetry."

"Good. Forget I said anything. And please don't Google 'Yeats' and 'swan.'"

"Loki…" Verity crawled away from him, willing her pounding heart to slow down. "I think what we need are some rules. So here's two: one, warn me when you're going to do something, and two—I can't believe I'm saying this, but…when we're in bed, _no animals_ , okay?!"

His face fell. Then he perked up. "How about animal _heads?_ Like, you know, my usual body but an animal's—"

"Ugh, _no!_ Jesus, that might even be worse!"

"How about if there's nothing sexual going on, and we're just cuddling or whatever—'cause it's really nice to be a cat under those circumstances—"

"Let me put it this way," said Verity slowly, "if we are naked, even _just a little_ , everyone stays human. Got it?"

"What if we were wearing latex bodysuits? You know, for sex?"

"Loki…" Verity was starting to lose patience—because when he'd warned her about getting involved with him, she was pretty sure _this_ was what he'd meant, and _this_ wasn't some deep dark weird god thing, this was just immaturity and bad impulse control. "Is there any way you can, I don't know, abide by the spirit of this request and not look for every possible loophole?"

"I can try," he said soberly, "but you have to understand—habit of a lifetime, you know? Finding loopholes is basically what I _do._ It's my life's work, really."

"Okay." Verity entertained the possibility that he really _didn't_ understand what she wanted from him, and collected herself. "Do you know what the mischief rule is?"

"No, but it sounds right up my alley."

"It's a rule they have for interpreting laws. The way it goes is, you think about the 'mischief' a law was made to prevent, and if you want to know whether someone was breaking that law, you ask if they were causing that mischief."

"Oh. So it's really an _anti-_ mischief rule, isn't it?" 

"Yeah. So ask yourself, 'Why might Verity not want me to be an animal when we're in bed together?' Why do you think that might be, Loki?"

"Because…it gives her the creeps, because her culture somewhat narrow-mindedly frowns upon interspecies sex?" 

"That's right. So, applying the mischief rule, let's go back to the latex suit question—which, by the way, we are _never_ doing, because I am fucking allergic to latex—but if by some bizarre twist we did, what do you think the answer would be?"

"Um…no cats? That is, no animals whatsoever?"

"Well done!"

Loki looked pleased for a moment before he remembered to pout. Then he grew puzzled again. "That still doesn't help me with the first rule, I'm afraid. Why, precisely, do you prefer to be warned, if you know I'm not going to use magic to hurt you?"

"Gee, I dunno," she said, incredulous. "If the laws of physics were going to change at random moments during the day, wouldn't you want some advance notice, even if it wasn't dangerous?"

Loki contemplated this. "I suppose," he said at last, "all other things being equal, I would opt for the warning over the non-warning, yes. But that's only because one likes to be able to plan, yes? During sex, who's planning anything?"

"Look at it this way," said Verity. "When you do things I'm not expecting, you know something that I don't, and you're using that to kind of—lord it over me. You have the power and I don't. And yes—" She rolled her eyes— "I _know_ you're a thousand times more powerful than me, but I don't like to be reminded of it all the time, especially when I'm already feeling a bit—exposed." She met his eyes again, which were wide and unblinking. "Does that make sense to you?"

He nodded. 

"Okay." She smiled encouragingly. "Good."

He returned her smile, but it wasn't the thousand-watt grin he gave her when he was genuinely pleased. She climbed back into his lap and kissed his rigid mouth. 

"Loki," she said. She kissed his eyebrow, and then his cheekbone. "This can work. You're not destined to drive everyone away."

To her surprise, that dimmed his smile even more. "Aren't I? I've actually been spoiled rather heavily about where my destiny, as you say, winds up, and—"

"No." She stroked his hair. "Stop it. That's not how time works." She kissed the unhappy line of his mouth again, and coaxed it open with her tongue. "I've read a lot of physics and I can tell you that's now how the universe is made. Or at least, it's not how _I'm_ made. If you want to drive me away, Loki, you will have to do it deliberately."

That was what finally drained the tension from his body. Slowly his arms crept back up to twine around her, and slowly he tipped them over, easing himself down between her parted thighs. "I will make you crave me," he murmured into the hollow of her throat, thrusting his hips against hers, "and I will not need magic to do it."

"Okay," Verity squeaked. She felt a different kind of uneasiness now—the good kind, the kind that said "get on with it." 

"But I must warn you, I am about to do something magical—would you care to know what it is, or do I have permission to surprise you?"

"Oh, what the hell." Verity tightened her thighs around his waist. "Surprise me."

His grin as he kissed her was wider than ever. Suddenly her bare skin was touching nothing but the sheets, and Loki's bare skin. "Holy shit," she said.

"Handy, isn't it?" Loki slid his erection between her thighs, rubbing its full length against her clit. "More practical than sexy, I suppose, but a good one to have in the repertoire…"

"Shut up and fuck me," she said, tilting her hips to allow his next thrust to enter her—and Loki complied.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide, Wyomingnot! Just letting you know that you've actually got another story coming in a different fandom, but I didn't finish it in time, so expect it as a New Years gift. Thanks for your great requests - you were a joy to write for!


End file.
